


Illusions to Live By

by willywonka3435



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Angst with a Mostly Positive Ending, Eating Disorders, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, M/M, References to Depression, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:47:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25873087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/willywonka3435/pseuds/willywonka3435
Summary: Wilson kills himself slowly. No one notices.
Relationships: Greg House/James Wilson
Comments: 3
Kudos: 147





	Illusions to Live By

Wilson kills himself slowly. No one notices.

It’s very odd, because when he was fat—and that’s how he says it to himself now, in his head, fat, not chubby or just a little overweight but fat, which is what he was—they all noticed. Oh, they had no problem noticing.

He doesn’t admit that he’s going to die. It’s not suicide. He only—well, he only wants to be thin. What’s the big deal?

House, who normally notices _everything_ , doesn’t seem to pay attention. House’s job is to notice things other people haven’t noticed, or don’t want to notice, or simply can’t see, but he doesn’t realize that Wilson is a little too eager to share his food. He doesn’t figure out that Wilson eats very slowly until House arrives at the table, or that Wilson surreptitiously guides his food in House’s direction by nudging his French fries with his wrist. Or that the token protests Wilson offers are half-hearted and not really protests at all.

Wilson thinks House _should_ notice. House mentions everything that’s insignificant or none of his business, or both. If Wilson reorganizes his books, for God’s sake, House points it out. If he wears the same tie two days in a row, House gives him a third degree worthy of the Spanish Inquisition. But now that there is something really important in Wilson’s life, something that he might need the help of a friend with, House doesn’t mention it.

He goes on eating potato chips like nothing has changed.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------

Food is repulsive. Wilson looks at it and wonders how others can feel any desire to consume, to pack on pounds and pounds of cellulite and flab. He knows that fat’s unattractive, but it’s more than wanting to be attractive. He just wants to be thin, damn it. Just thin.

He used to be thin. He remembers those days, and they were nice, the days before he began putting on the weight. He doesn’t remember consciously eating more, or checking the scale and realizing that the numbers were going up, or the way his lab coat must have stretched across his chest. He vividly recalls the way House glanced at him one afternoon, so casually, and said, “Maybe you should cut back, huh, doughboy?” And he does remember going to his room, stripping down to shower, looking at his body in the mirror—front-on—and thinking that he was overweight. Overweight. Not fat then, but overweight.

The problem was that food was _easy_. Cleaner than sex, better than throwing money down the drain, especially when he had the police breathing down his neck, closing his bank accounts for no fucking reason. He just took the bus back to the hotel, rode up to his room, sat on his bed, and, well, picked up the phone. So easy. You tell them what you want, they send it up, you eat it. He lost track of the food, he figures, and he made a dire mistake because he became a blimp. Now he has to fix the damage. It’s very simple.

Wilson understands the dangers of anorexia. He has seen the photographs, heard the stories, witnessed the damage himself by wrapping his fingers gently, so softly, around the delicate bird’s-wing wrist of a victim. Feeling like she would snap. He pictured, for days afterward, the radius with osteoporosis, caverns bound by branching spiderweb bone, but she hadn’t had osteoporosis. She’d had something much worse.

But here’s the thing: he’s not anorexic.

Wilson tells himself, when he skips lunch, that he has work to catch up on. As long as no one’s noticed, he can’t be too thin. Not yet.

When being too thin becomes his goal, Wilson thinks, then he’ll get help. But he doesn’t _need_ help. There’s nothing wrong with him. He is going through the motions of his day, and he is pleasantly numb, and he is slipping away.

He wishes he _did_ need help, sometimes. That he were someone who suffered loudly.

But no one notices. Wilson still laughs, still goes over to House’s and watches television, still works, fights his losing battles. On good days, there are people who can live for that much longer, do that much more. On bad ones, for every ten he saves, twenty more are condemned. He has a lot of bad ones.

When House swipes a bit of his lunch, Wilson shares the rest, then throws away half of what’s left because his pager went off, and if Wilson set it off himself by slipping a hand in his pocket under the table—if there’s nothing wrong at all—

No one notices.

Wilson is an oncologist and a sort-of best friend. As long as he does both jobs, he’ll be fine.

Someday, just maybe, he’ll be thin, too.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------

Once, House gave him a funny look. It was a while ago, two months maybe. They were sitting in House’s living room, waiting for a pizza to arrive. Wilson was wondering how he’d get out of eating any and thinking that wasn’t he lucky he’d found the perfect relationship—someone who’d never ask how he was feeling because he really didn’t _care_ —and only halfway concentrating on the conversation. House said, “…so I sent Cameron down to tell him that he has a week to live,” and Wilson mumbled, “That’s good.”

Then House said nothing.

“Huh?” Wilson glanced up.

“Why?”

“Why what?” There were many pitfalls in talking with House. You never knew when you were stepping on solid ground and when you were about to tread on an illusion.

“You’re not listening.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Wilson went back in his mind, looking at every inch of the stenographer’s tape to find what he’d missed. Crap.

House was staring at him, which made Wilson uncomfortable.

“Sorry,” he said again. “Thinking about one of my patients.”

“No. You’re not.”

“Look,” Wilson said suddenly, “do you want to know? Do you actually want to have a conversation about this?” The words erupted desperately. Because if House actually said yes, if he said yes Wilson I do want to know, I do maybe just a little love you, Wilson would have told him.

House looked into Wilson’s eyes. For a moment, Wilson felt that House saw right inside him, everything he was and thought he might be and had been and had tried to be, straight down to whatever the hell passed for a soul in the modern-day royally fucked-up world. But House said nothing at all, and the moment passed. Wilson realized he’d been wrong.

House wasn’t a magic man, despite the hype. Sometimes, like everyone else, he saw what he wanted to see.

“Well?”

“No,” House muttered, and he turned on the television.

And that was that.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------

Now, rather than eat his favorite foods, Wilson does what’s necessary. He no longer enjoys a good steak or a costly glass of wine; he eats to stay alive and to convince himself that, no, he really isn’t ill, he really doesn’t have a problem.

Sometimes he returns from the bathroom at lunch and finds that a sandwich has landed on his desk, perched atop his folders as if it belongs there. It’s his favorite kind. Sometimes it’s brought coffee along for a chat. Wilson eats a quarter and drinks half the coffee and throws the rest away. He doesn’t ask how it gets there. He doesn’t especially care. He can’t taste it any more. He can’t taste anything any more. It’s all sawdust.

Wilson knows what’s going on. House, as usual, taking the easy way out. Convincing, say, Cameron to buy an extra lunch every now and then, dropping it on your buddy’s desk because he hasn’t been around the cafeteria. It’s that simple. You see what you want to see, Wilson thinks, and wonders how House, such a great diagnostician, can miss the fact that his best friend is drowning in a sea of cellulite. He doesn’t want House’s sandwiches, damn it. He doesn’t want anyone’s sandwiches, come to that.

He eats as little as he can get away with. He has come to dread feeling full.

Wilson sleeps less. He stares at the ceiling for an hour until he drifts off. The shadows under his eyes are ridiculously faint. Wilson takes cold showers and drinks more coffee. He knows no one’s going to notice. No one does.

He doesn’t _need_ to get to work earlier, but his sleep is fitful and the hotel room is too quiet.

Wilson still does his job—both of them.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------

On Friday, he sleeps through his alarm. He’s woken at ten by the sun slanting through the blinds; the light’s falling at just the right angle, so it hits him in the eyes, and he sits bolt upright and checks his watch immediately. He’s very late. Cuddy has called three times, and she’s furious. But she’s not worried; she’s busy, and she expects him to do his job.

Wilson, responsible Wilson, rings Cuddy and invents a reason why he could not arrive on time. Cuddy isn’t happy, but he’s never late, and she accepts his story—just this once.

If House notices, he never asks.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------

Monday of the following week, Wilson doesn’t eat lunch, and he orders a Caesar salad for dinner, with a glass of wine that slides down his throat like crude oil and has no particular flavor at all. He eats two-thirds of the salad but finds that he doesn’t have room for the rest, which is strange because he’s hardly eaten anything all day.

As he’s scraping the rest into the trash, he realizes that his stomach is shrinking. He’s scared. His pants are bigger than they should be.

When he returns to his tray the unfinished wine is still sitting there; it’s been waiting for him, being very patient. He picks it up and finishes it right away, regardless of the fact that it’s a far cry from what he used to drink. The quality’s not so important now. He knows that this is the way he should behave, the way he _did_ behave, and as long as he keeps things going somehow, there’s nothing wrong.

He wishes that he had some whisky, or beer at least—then he remembers that beer is too fattening, and the wine was probably fattening even. This doesn’t scare him as much as it should. The old Wilson would want a wine he’d enjoy. The new Wilson wants low-cal alcohol.

Wilson hasn’t been on a date in a month. He hasn’t had sex in two.

On Tuesday, he is sitting on the edge of his bed when he realizes that he really would like to have sex. He thinks of this bluntly: I want to have sex. Instead, he does something that he would never have done last year.

He calls a woman.

She’s a stranger. He gives her House’s name and credit card number. He’s not sure how he _knows_ House’s credit card number, but that’s coming in handy. Serves House right for never noticing, never caring.

The woman, in sultry tones, informs him that the call will cost two dollars per minute for the first half an hour. He hangs up and jacks off in the shower, thinking of his first wife. He washes everything down the drain and wishes he could disappear.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------

Wilson goes to work the next morning as if nothing has changed.

It hasn’t.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------

He eats lunch with House again, but House is the only one doing any actual eating. He thinks House will _have_ to notice now—it couldn’t be more obvious that he is picking at his food, that he is losing lots of weight (still a little too heavy). House reaches over and asks if he wants those chips. Wilson never expected House to ask. He says no, he doesn’t want them. House eats them there at the table, a handful at a time, and as Wilson watches the potato chips vanish he feels sick and proud. And tired.

House talks on and on about his latest case. Wilson doesn’t listen.

When House finishes, he leaves his tray beside Wilson’s, littered with trash. It’s obvious that he expects Wilson to scrape it, as usual. He glances down and says, “Are you gonna finish that sandwich?”

Wilson blinks. “No,” he says. “Had a huge breakfast—I’m not really hungry. You want it?”

“Thanks.” House scoops it up and walks away, taking a bite as he goes.

As Wilson eats less and less, House seems to be compensating for the deficit. Wilson begins to think that, rather than simply failing to notice, House is blind. Part of him wants to tap-dance across the cafeteria screaming that he needs help. Doesn’t anybody care?

The other part still insists that nothing is wrong.

Not yet.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------

On Friday, nearly a month later, Wilson sits on the toilet. He hasn’t raised the lid.

He is tired. Worse, he is hungry. He isn’t happy. But he is thin.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------

On Sunday, because he doesn’t have to go to work, Wilson sprawls across the bed and wonders if maybe, just maybe, he should consider getting a little help.

Call someone, he thinks, should call somebody. Who cares what he says? What they say is what matters. If only he called enough people, someone would have to notice that something was funny, and they’d ask if he was okay. The problem with that theory, Wilson realizes abruptly, is that _he’d say yes_.

He would lie there, already wondering what not to eat for lunch, with the phone to his ear, and when the invisible person said hey James you’ve been acting strange, haven’t seen you in awhile, you doing okay?

When they asked, he would say yes.

And they’d believe him.

Wilson rests his head in his hands and wishes for some tears.

Then the phone rings.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------

House has called him. Thank the Lord for minor miracles. House is the last person on Earth who’ll ever ask if he’s okay, and so he won’t have to say yes, because, Wilson thinks, if he says yes he will scream. He picks up the phone and answers.

“Hello?”

“Hey.” House says nothing for a moment. “Look—I don’t want to talk about anything. Got that?”

“Huh?” Wilson is feeling a little slow on the uptake.

“You are coming to my place tomorrow after work, and you’re going to eat.”

“Tomorrow?” Too late, Wilson realizes that the word he should repeat, the word his mind is repeating even then, is “eat.”

“I’ll be in your office. Be there.”

House hangs up. Wilson rests the phone on the pillow and stares at it. Leave it to House. Leave it to House to know him so well, so fucking well. Leave it to House to know that, if he’d enquired about Wilson’s health, Wilson would lie without thinking twice.

Just leave it to House.

Fuck.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------

On Monday, Wilson rides, with House, to House’s apartment. He straddles the back of the motorcycle and touches House as little as possible without falling off. It took a lot of fast talking on House’s part to convince him to ride that death machine, but—and he’d never admit it—he likes it. It reminds him of flying. If he does die, he tells himself, at least he will die happy.

Then House turns a corner so fast it feels like they’re going to break the sound barrier. Wilson forgets about not touching him and wraps his arms around House’s waist, holding on for dear life.

House smells like leather and cologne.

For no reason at all, Wilson wants to cry.

They arrive, and House holds out his hands. He insisted upon Wilson’s wearing the spare helmet, which Wilson was glad for because, well, he’s not _suicidal_ , is he? Wilson undoes the straps and tries to lift it off, prepared to deal with the tight fit, but it comes away easily. Like magic. He gives it to House very quietly. House tells him to make dinner. House does not ask things. He tells them.

Wilson makes stuffed peppers. They’ve become unappetizing. The old Wilson loved these, he remembers, but the old Wilson, the fat Wilson, is gone. As he smells them and House hollers from the living room that he’s starving, the monster stirs.

Hunger for Wilson is no longer a nagging stepmother. It’s an animal, and he doesn’t like disturbing it.

But he’s still not thin enough. Not thin enough. No one’s noticed, and so nothing’s wrong. He’s fine. He has no problem at all.

Wilson’s mind fills with the face of the anorexic girl he met during medical school. She looked as if the flesh had simply fallen away from her bones. Her cheeks were hollows a man could drop into and vanish forever, down and down and down into nothing. Her ribs were a stepladder. She needed serious help.

I, Wilson thinks, am not that girl. I will never be that girl. It’s impossible.

I’m a doctor, for God’s sake. I know better.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------

He serves the peppers on House’s best dishes, which really aren’t that great. House doesn’t seem to mind; he grabs the fork Wilson offers and starts right in. He used to pretend that Wilson’s food was nothing special, but Wilson saw straight through him—hell, everyone did. Now the fact that he is stuffing his face without reservation sets alarm bells ringing in Wilson’s head, like little telephones in abandoned homes.

Wilson sits down beside House, swings his feet up onto the coffee table, and says, “What’s on TV?”

“Nothing right now,” House mutters, forking another chunk of bell pepper. “You’re eating dinner. Remember?”

“Of course.” Wilson looks at his plate. It’s huge.

He sets it down.

“I want a beer,” he mumbles, and heads for the kitchen.

When he comes back in five minutes—he took as long as he could—with two, House hasn’t finished; he’s put his plate right next to Wilson’s, and, goddamn it, he’s _waiting_.

“Thanks,” House says. He watches intently as Wilson readies his fork. He’s got his own halfway to his mouth, frozen in mid-air.

“What’re you doing?” Wilson says. “Why are you so concerned about me eating dinner?”

“Just eat it, okay?” House doesn’t look pleased. The meal’s not going his way, Wilson thinks. The spiteful bastard brought him home just to screw with his head. Typical House.

“Why?” Wilson’s being childish, and he knows. He’s being a pest, and he knows. He’s being immature and stupid. He knows that too.

“ _Because you’re fucking starving yourself_ ,” House yells. Before Wilson processes what’s going on, House has chucked his plate at the wall, stuffed pepper, silverware, napkin and all.

Wilson’s mouth opens and closes, like a fish.

“You are starving yourself, you fucking idiot,” House says, and now that he’s started he doesn’t seem to plan on stopping. “Look, I’ve given you a chance. I’ve given you too many damn chances. You’re going to die, Wilson, you’re going to fucking _die_ , and if you really want to do that there are better ways. Okay? You want some of my drugs, you fucking _ask_ me.”

“Uh—” Wilson begins, but he can’t get a word in edgewise.

“You,” House growls, “need help.”

Oh. This is how it’s gonna go.

“ _I_ need help?” Wilson says, calmly. “I’m the one who needs help?”

House doesn’t speak. Instead, he looks across the room at the shattered plate, like he almost regrets throwing it. He didn’t finish eating, after all.

“I’m not the one who’s destroying his liver,” Wilson says. “I’m not the one who is so screwed up, so goddamn demented, that—that—that he _lies about dying of cancer to the only people who love him_. Love him, House, goddamn it.”

It takes him a while to realize what he’s said.

They sit that way for three full minutes. Neither of them moves a muscle. Wilson stares straight ahead and tries not to think about how he has destroyed his life so well. He doesn’t know what House is thinking, and he’s afraid to find out. He wants to get up and leave, just get up and run away, or catch a bus, and crawl into bed and disappear.

“What’d you say?” House asks finally. His voice is utterly devoid of emotion.

Wilson breathes. “I said you lied to the only people who love you, House, and if you want to—”

House turns and looks at him. There’s something strange in his eyes.

“I want you to eat that, Wilson,” he says. “Okay? Please. I just want you to eat that.”

\-----------------------------------------------------------------

Wilson wonders if House thinks about calories at all. Does House have any idea of what he put into their meal? Well, no, look at how House eats. But it’s not always the calories. Sometimes it’s the control. It’s the ability to walk by a restaurant, see people sitting inside, stuffing their faces like happy slobs, and realize, I am not doing that. I am capable of not doing that.

I am stronger than they are because I don’t need to do that.

He’s staring at his plate. He’s _hungry_ , his stomach is cramping as if it’s trying to digest itself, but he just doesn’t want to eat. He’s afraid. He’s not sure what he’s afraid of anymore.

House is watching him. He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees.

“Is it that hard?” he asks. “God, Wilson, you’re finally more fucked up than I am. We should alert the media.”

“Look, I’m fine,” Wilson says. Goddamn it. “I mean—I’m not very hungry, that’s all.”

House only looks at him.

Wilson pokes at the food with his fork, studying it, wondering one last time if he can get out of eating somehow.

He holds the fork like a knife and saws off a small section. Then he stabs it and takes it into his mouth. House is intent on his every move. This is the operation of the century. No feigning inattention here.

He swallows and immediately wants to choke.

“Well?” House says finally.

“Well what?” Wilson puts the plate on the table, and House thinks he’s finished.

“You’re eating more than that.”

“Yeah. I was just—” He gestures to the beer. It is fattening, because House doesn’t believe in low-calorie anything. He has a little sip.

“You drink like a girl,” House mutters. Wilson looks up at him, expecting to see derision written across his face, but that’s not what happens. What happens is House, without meeting his eyes, reaches over and rests a hand on Wilson’s thigh. Wilson doesn’t move, and they sit there, frozen.

Wilson reaches for the plate again, careful not to move House’s hand. He has no idea what House is up to. Hell, he _never_ knows.

The second bite is a little easier. Not much. He still wants to choke.

But it’s just a little easier.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------

They sit on the couch afterward with the television off, in House’s silent apartment. Wilson insisted House do the dishes, so he knows they’re stacked a mile high in the oven, but he can’t seem to care. He threw away most of his meal—he was hardly able to eat half.

“I’m scared,” Wilson says suddenly. He’s staring at the blank television screen. House shifts and doesn’t answer.

“I’m hungry, though,” he continues. It’s a revelation.

“No shit,” House says. “Of course you’re hungry. You’ve been eating like Cameron.”

“I know.”

And he _does_ know, he realizes. It’s stupid, but he still feels fat. He’s really, really afraid.

“House—” Wilson’s fumbling for the words. “I understand how stupid it is—”

“Yeah.” House won’t look at him. “You need help.”

Wilson turns and tries to _make_ House look at him, to put himself in House’s range of vision so much that House is forced to choose between leaving and making eye contact. It doesn’t exactly work. “Look—about—what I said,” he says, “I’m sorry.”

House laughs. It’s a barking laugh, and not an especially happy one. “Sorry for what? Falling in love with me?”

Suddenly everything’s exposed. There’s an elephant on Wilson’s chest.

“I’m not somebody you want to be with,” House says. “You know something has to change.”

Wilson can’t seem to speak, so he focuses on House’s cane, resting neatly against the arm of the couch. He tried walking with that cane once, while House was asleep, just to see what it was like. He couldn’t get very far.

“Will you get help?” House asks eventually, after they’ve been quiet for a while.

“I think I want to try,” Wilson says.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Now Wilson’s surprised. All that and House is willing to back off so quickly? No fanfare, no fireworks, no nothing?

“That’s all I can ask for,” House says. “I can’t make the choice for you.”

“I’m going to get help.”

“Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Wilson turns and stares at House, and when House turns his head too he’s wearing the look Wilson only ever thinks he sees, the one that appears after he’s made a good joke at someone else’s expense or done someone a favor when he shouldn’t. The one that always fades before he can know what it means.

It’s affectionate.

“I know,” Wilson says.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------

On Tuesday, House rides his motorcycle to work. Wilson sits behind him and wraps his arms around House’s waist without hesitation, and when they turn the corners it’s like they’re flying.

He presses his face into the back of House’s leather jacket. His hair brushes House’s neck, feather-light, and he smells that ever-present cologne.

House grins. And, Wilson thinks, House notices.


End file.
